Whanganui District Health Board has decided against petitioning the Government for a change of voting system - but it will support individual board members who wish to make a submission.
Members Allan Anderson and Ray Stevens were asked by the board to prepare a paper to present to last week's board meeting about the number of votes received for Whanganui District Health Board candidates which were invalid.
Wanganui electoral officer, Noeline Moosman, said some voters have been filling out their voting papers incorrectly because of the two different voting systems. Wanganui District Council and Horizons Regional Council use first past the post, but the Whanganui District Health Board uses the single transferable vote [STV] system which requires voters to rank the candidates, rather than ticking their preferred candidates.
In the 2010 local government elections, 5.7 per cent of votes cast for WDHB candidates could not be counted because the papers were filled out incorrectly. Out of 21 DHBs, WDHB was ranked 10th highest for invalid votes.
District health boards are required by law to use the STV system.
WDHB secretary Peter Brown said board members discussed at last week's meeting whether it was the board's responsibility to approach the Government over the issue.
One possible option was that the board make a submission to the Justice & Electoral Select Committee, which conducts a post-election review and calls for submissions.
Mr Brown said that while there was concern over the issue, most board members felt making a submission was not the best use of resources.
"We run an efficient ship with limited resources and we have to make choices about where we use those resources," he said.
But the board agreed to endorse individual members who wished to make a submission to the select committee.
While it was too late for this year's elections, members also agreed to liaise with the Wanganui District Council about making the different voting systems more obvious for voters in future elections.
member Ray Stevens said the issue was about making voting easier for the community.
"In Palmerston North it's easy, because both their council and DHB use STV in their elections. But if you're a voter in Wanganui, you have to read the fine print to realise you need to vote a different way."
Mr Stevens said he would favour using two separate voting papers, or using a different coloured paper for the DHB voting.
This year's elections will be held on October 12.
Mr Anderson could not be contacted for comment.